Beyond Texas
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Eric and Tami return home after their first day of work at their new jobs in Philadelphia. A fluffy one-shot.


**Beyond Texas**

Eric Taylor tossed his keys into the glass dish on the kitchen counter and walked to the adjoining living room while his wife paid the baby sister. They'd hired a retired woman, a mother of three grown children, to watch Gracie while they were at work because Eric had been dissatisfied with the few daycare centers they had visited. Tami had agreed with him about that, even though she seemed reluctant to admit any flaws in their new town, a suburb of Philadelphia.

It was as if Tami was still trying to sell him on Phili even though he'd said yes, made the move, and gotten a job. He guessed she wanted to reassure herself she hadn't talked him into a bad move. She was probably trying to erase any guilt she might have been feeling for allowing him to compromise his career for hers. He knew. He'd been there before himself, when the shoe was on the other foot. He supposed they would find a decent place for Gracie eventually. Until then, they could afford the one-on-one care. After all, Tami was making twice what she had made in Texas, even if he had been forced to take a pay cut, and even if a dollar didn't stretch nearly as far in Philadelphia as it had in Dillon.

"Thanks, Ms. Swainson, for managing to get Gracie down to sleep before we got home." The sound of Tami's familiar drawl was soothing to Eric as he sunk onto the leather couch. "We weren't expecting that. It's kind of nice to have the quiet on the first day." They'd both worked late tonight, Eric holding practice until after sundown, Tami trying to dig her way out from under the mountain of paperwork the previous dean had left behind. They'd grabbed dinner on the way home, and it was now twenty minutes until eight. "In the future, though, could you keep her up? We'd like the time with her in the evening, since we don't see her all day."

Eric smiled. His wife was a master of diplomacy. He never would have thought to say it like that. If things hadn't been done the way he had wanted, he'd have barely masked his irritation. That's why she'd always been a great coach's wife, he supposed. Hell, just a great wife period.

He nodded to the babysitter as she slipped out the door and relaxed his head back onto the cushion. "You aren't gonna move this couch out from under me, are you?" he asked his wife. Tami had moved the furniture around three times that weekend, reorganizing like a maniac, trying to settle into something that felt like home.

She slid down next to him. She looked around the room and nodded with satisfaction. "I think it's finally where I want it, hon." She patted his chest lightly and then snuggled in against his shoulder. "I've been talking the whole ride home. Now it's your turn to tell me about your first day."

They would be getting a second car soon, but it had been kind of nice having Tami pick him up at work tonight so he could relax on the drive home. He hated Philadelphia traffic. It wasn't a comforting, tension-relieving drive like it would have been in Dillon, the wide open roads, the stark beauty of the Texas fields, the quiet, the chance to wind down on the way home. He didn't look forward to driving in this mess once they got the car. Tami, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind being behind the wheel. She hardly appeared bothered by the interminable stoplights, the car horns honking. She'd been busy telling him about her new position, anyway, and her voice had been full of excitement, her smile barely contained even as she moved her lips to speak, her eyes – if he had been able to see the under those thick sunglasses, he was sure would have been bright with happiness.

Seeing her like that had made him smile, had reassured him he'd made the right decision to compromise. He had wanted to stay in Dillon, and she had proved her willingness to defer to him and his career yet again. In the end, though, he couldn't abide the thought of her finally closing the door on her dream forever, and in his heart, he knew that's what it would have been. She'd have done the dutiful thing, but he was afraid something in her heart, some small part of it, might have changed toward him forever. As hesitant as he was about his new position, it gave him joy to see her joy. And as every southern man knows, if mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

"My day?" he asked. "It was a'ight."

"All right? Really, that's it? That's all you've got to say about it?"

Truth was, he had a lot to say about it. He wanted to let loose in a torrent of complaints, the way he would have in Texas if something was eating at him. He wanted to rant a little and have her listen to him, humor him, ruffle his hair and tease him back into a kind of calm. But he didn't want her to think he'd regretted giving in to her preference, either. He was trying to look on the bright side of things.

Eric had told his team he looked forward to the whole hell of a lot of work they had ahead of him, and in a way, he did. Turning a team no one expected to excel into contenders…that would actually give him more satisfaction, a greater sense of pride, than leading a super team. The Pioneers weren't the Lions, though, and he didn't really think he had a chance to do it, not yet, but he was going to try.

"You know what, hon, I think you're lying to me. Go on, I can take it." She sat up and looked him in the eyes. "Say what you really think."

This was the permission he needed. He wasn't dealing with any wilting violet in Tami, that was for sure. He'd never had to protect her from his frustration or unhappiness. It was a relief to be so bluntly reminded of it.

"Okay then," he said, nodding. "They've got hardly any equipment at that place. The goal posts are peeling. Half those boys act like they've never been yelled at by a coach before. I swear there was one I thought was going to jump at my shadow. Shy as they were on the field, when they were off it, I couldn't believe the mouths on those kids–"

"–Seriously, Eric? I'm sure it isn't anything you haven't heard in Texas. I'm sure it isn't anything you haven't said to your own players."

"Yeah, but I mean they were swearing just as much in front of this group of girls who came to watch practice—that's another thing, that's got to stop right there, those girls hanging out around the fence. Anyway, they were swearing up and down in front of those girls. Constantly. Every good southern man knows you don't swear in front of a lady."

"It's absolutely not true you've never cussed in front of me!"

"Well, twenty-one years of marriage, Tami, it's bound to happen."

"Excuse me!" she slapped him lightly on the chest. "Excuse me!"

"What? What was that for!"

"Twenty-one years of marriage, Eric? Really?"

"Twenty-two?" he ventured, bracing himself for the possibility of another, harder slap this time.

"Thanks for remembering, hon." She settled back into the couch, this time facing him and looking into his eyes. He loved the way she so often gave him her full attention when they were talking. As he had told Matt and Julie, that's what a marriage required to survive – for the two of you to listen, really listen, to each other, and that was something Tami had _nearly_ always done. Nearly.

"Well, I think if you could deal with boys who were on their way to prison in Dillon, you can deal with a little lack of manners here. If you recall, the players you dealt with in Texas weren't exactly angels."

"I know, I know. I'm just getting this out, Tami." Listen she always did, but it would be too much to expect her not to put her two cents in. He imagined she had never been the kind of counselor who just repeated back to you what you had said. She had opinions, all right, and she was going to tell you what they were. And even though those opinions sometimes got his ire up, he wouldn't have it any other way. A lot of guys he knew had sought out quietly submissive women so they could feel like protectors and leaders. Well, he didn't need to feel like a leader. As Tami had once told him, he just _was_ one. He had always led his team with an assertiveness that didn't always match his confidence, but that got them through. And he had led his family with assertiveness too, assertiveness he knew Tami found simultaneously comforting and irritating. She had often deferred to him, but never quietly. Never quietly. He needed a strong woman to match his own intensity.

"You're just supposed to listen and affirm, right?" he asked. "Listen and affirm, not try to solve my problem. That's what the book says, right? That's your wifely duty."

"I swear, Eric, I would slap you, but I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. The book? What book? Are you talking about the Bible?"

"No, that marriage book you asked – no, _**told**_ – me to read years ago when we were struggling. Well, one of the times we were struggling." There'd been a few too many. Well, no more than any marriage, he supposed, and they had made the effort each time. That was the difference. He had seen the marriages of too many friends crumble. There were things he knew he and Tami probably couldn't come back from, and that knowledge had more than once kept him from temptation, but by now he had a firm confidence that there was almost nothing they couldn't weather through.

He watched Tami's mouth drop in that familiar, wide-opened look of disbelief. "You _**actually**_ read that?"

"Yeah, I read it. I can read. I read books from time to time. I've been known to do it."

"Well, I'll be…." Tami shook her head. "Seriously, hon, I appreciate it's not going to be easy for you here. I do. I appreciate that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's no super team, but you are a super coach."

He laughed at the sound of that. "Super coach," he muttered, "to the rescue."

She rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean, Eric." Then she smiled, that smile he knew always came before a corny joke, the type that was bound to make him groan. "With the super power to transform boys into men."

And he did groan.

"You just don't know how to take a compliment." She kissed him playfully and then drew back into what he had once jokingly called her 'concerned counselor pose.'

"And no more Friday night lights." He ran a frustrated hand through his thick hair. "At least not most of the time."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they usually play on Friday afternoons because they have to borrow the lights from some central...it's some weird rotating…Can you believe that? Friday afternoons?"

"Really? What about the parents who are working?"

"That's it. That's just it. Football just isn't…I knew it wasn't going to mean in Pennsylvania what it means in Texas…but…hell…I'm nobody here."

"I'll ignore the fact that you just swore in front of a lady and just tell you I'm sorry you feel that way."

"Yeah, well, I'll get over it. It's the game that's important. Those boys that are important. Maybe I was a little too important at times in Dillon."

She nodded, and he knew she was probably thinking of the same thing he was, the time that brick had come through their window, in the midst of one of their arguments, shattering his irritation with her and drawing his mind back to what was really important.

"And that green," he continued his litany of complaints, "that putrid, putrid, awful Pioneer green."

"Well, ya' know, red and blue make green, so maybe it's like you're fusing two teams after all."

"Tami?" The rising laughter in his voice ought to have been clear, but she responded, "Yeah?" innocently enough. "Umm…Ms. Dean of Admissions? College girl? Red and blue make purple. Yellow and blue make green."

Tami sighed. "Lord, Eric, I don't know where my brain is right now. I've been using it all day. This job is so interesting and challenging. I must have turned it off when I came in the door. I can't believe I just said that."

Now he couldn't contain his laughter. When he thought he was done getting it out, he half said, half laughed, "Dean of Admissions. College material. It's amazing you settled for a dumb jock like me."

"Come on, now. Cut me some slack, Coach Taylor."

"Well…" he cozied on up and kissed her, first teasingly, and then more deeply. "Well…" he murmured, his lips still slightly on hers, "I suppose I might allow you to earn a little extra credit. If you know what I mean."

"Will I have to stay after school?"

"Okay, now you're making me uncomfortable."

"So serious, Eric. So serious."

He stood and tugged on her hand.

"That's okay," she said. "It's kind of one of the things I find attractive about you, really."

He motioned with his head toward the bedroom, tugging again on her hand.

"What, southern gentleman? You're just going to jerk your head and expect me to follow? Where's the rose petal path leading to the bed?"

"It's not in the budget currently. Maybe after we win state." He pulled her from the couch into his arms and kissed her deeply.

"I'm holding you to that one, Eric Taylor."

**THE END**


End file.
